Surely the man’s life was a ghastly one, with a murder on his conscience and a murderer on his track! Yet a terrible purpose gradually fixed itself in the mind of Onesimus. He persuaded himself that he was utterly God-forsaken; that such a deluge of calamities could not otherwise have come upon him. Every hope of his life was frustrated; for him there seemed no future possibility of honesty, or happiness, or home, and his heart was burdened with the sore weight of a hopeless love. Why should he not become the King of the Arician Grove? ‘_The king is always a runaway slave._’ Those words of Ofellus rang in his ear. He was regaining strength. He was swift of foot. His gladiatorial training had taught him how to wield a sword. If Christ had forsaken him, why should not he forsake Christ? What mattered it that he would soon be murdered in his turn? For a few years, at any rate, he might keep his life, and be in honour, and share in gay festivals. He resolved to watch for his opportunity, and to try his chance. Full of his desperate purpose, he stole under the dark shadows of the trees, with no guide but the straggling starlight, to find the great oak which Ofellus had described to him. It grew deep in the green hollow close beside the lake, and the hoary mistletoe tufted its upper branches. He climbed the tree, plucked ‘the golden bough,’ and waited for the rising of the moon to attack the Arician priest if he came out of the temple, as he usually did, before he went to rest. It was not long before the moon began to silver the dense foliage of the grove, and then he heard a wicket open, and from the place where he knelt crouched among the brushwood he saw the tall figure of the priest, whose shadow fell across the sward and almost reached his hiding-place. He was a gaunt-looking man, but of powerful frame. He carried a large sword in his hand and looked round him suspiciously on every side.[84] In his excitement Onesimus moved, and a fallen branch snapped under his foot. The priest looked round with a startled glance, and Onesimus could see his features working in the moonlight. He had armed himself for his frightful purpose with the only weapon he could find--a reaping-hook, which he took down from Dromo’s wall. Listening intently, the priest walked along the grassy path, but as no other sound followed he seemed to relax his vigilance and turned back. Then, with a sudden shout, Onesimus sprang upon him.